top 3

You know how sometimes you just start thinking about random things. You do that don't you? It's not just me? Right? So tonight I was listening to an old tape copy of Randy Travis' Storm's of Life, which I think it's neat to note was Rainey's back before we got together, after 22 years of togetherness there's not much left that once belonged to only one of us. So anyway, I got to thinking that while there are a couple not so great songs on the tape for the most part this was a great country album. I don't know if it was Randy's first but it was definitely his break out album. It's got Digging Up Bones, On the Other Hand, 1982, Reasons I Cheat and of course Storms of Life, all of which are great songs. So this put me to thinking of my favorite albums, not counting greatest hits and so here is the culmination of my pick of the 3 greatest country albums (please note I reserve the right to change my mind in the future).

Top 3 county albums- Willie Nelson's On the Road Again, Randy Travis' The Storms of Life and George Strait's Pure Country soundtrack.

There's a lot of artists that I have a number of their cd's- Tim Mcgraw, Kenny Chesney, Garth Brooks, Brad Paisley, Blake Shelton, Gary Allan, Dierks Bentley, Billy Currington but I couldn't think of one particular cd I could just think of songs. One glaring omission here is of course Cash's Folsom Prison Blues but as much as I love that album there are a lot of not so great songs on there and number of great songs is what I used as my criteria in this case.

Biggest Loser

Okay so I know I carry it fairly well and don't look all that big, but I am (according to a number of sources) grossly obese, was once even referred to by a medical facilitator as morbidly obese. I've battled weight since high school, or more to the point I've occasionally battled weight and occasionally rolled over and played dead, which may keep you from getting mauled by a bear but does nothing to keep you from looking quite ursine. Twice in my adult life I've gotten down to what doctors would consider a healthy weight. During basic training I lost down to actually 10 pounds below my goal weight and looked somewhat sickly (as my wife and mother put it), but it wasn't long till I left the safe eating habits of basic that I started packing the weight back on. The second time was about 7 to 9 years ago (I can't remember exactly) following the Atkins diet and I did really good for awhile but when I got the weight off I got careless and thought I could eat whatever and it wasn't long before, you guessed it, the weight was back. I joke about going on the biggest loser but the 55 pounds I needed to loose was no where near the 100's of pounds the average biggest loser contestant needs to shed and besides I don't know how these people go off and leave their jobs & their families for weeks. I couldn't do it. Well, I could leave my job for weeks if it weren't for the financial ruin it would cause, but not my wife and babies (I say babies but my oldest will in all probability be getting his driving permit this week). I've tried other diet and exercise plans to little or no success so I've decided to go back to what I know works- I'm going back to basic training. Just kidding. I'm way to old for that. I'm going back on Atkins, actually I've already started, two weeks in and I've lost 10 pounds. What I've figured out about myself is that I've got a terrible sugar addiction and I'm using Atkins to try and break it. I'm going to try and follow the progression outlined by the diet- you start by severely limiting carb intake (getting the majority of these carbs in the form of salad vegetables) and then you slowly build back up eating good healthy fruits and vegetables. I believe I can loose the weight again, what scares me is going back to my old, Coke-a-cola and chocolate pie behavior once I get there. It's hard to get rid of sugar from you diet it's in so many things we eat, but I'm trying.
'Hello my names Chad and I'm a sugar-aholic, it's been two weeks since I've knowingly eaten sugar.'

Best song ev-er. (Well one of them any way.)

So this morning I'm washing up breakfast dishes and staring out the window into my back yard and I think I need some John Denver. Now it's not often that a thought like that crosses your mind and even less often when you have the means to satisfy that desire. So I pop in the greatest hits cd and listen to some classics like Country Roads and Annie's Song and even demonstrated to the one year old how to dance a jig to Thank God I'm a Country Boy but then I called the children to silence and told them to listen to one of the greatest songs ever recorded- Sunshine on My Shoulders. This song evokes emotion in me and I believe that's a hallmark of greatest in any art. I imagine John sitting somewhere far away from the sun as he pens this wistful, melancholy ode to sunshine and the way it 'almost all the time gets me high'.

WWW Wednesday

Librarian Who posted a W3dnesday blog today and it reminded me that I'd not done one in about a month myself. So here goes.
What did I read last? I finished Flood Tide by Clive Cussler, okay story a pretty good beach read and that's where I started reading, even having the tide come in on me and washing the book out of my hands one time. Safe, predictable, you know exactly what's going to happen it's just fun finding out the how. Next I read American Gods by Neil Gaiman, a modern classic. Great read. Then I tried reading Brida by Paulo Coelho, some of Coelho's books I really like (The Alchemist or the Fifth Mountain for instance) and others I really don't like, after about a chapter I was pretty sure this was one I wouldn't like, so I set it aside.
What am I reading now? Angel's Game by Carlos Ruiz Zafon, so far the story is very intriguing. My only qualm with the book to this point is that while it is set in the late 19th century (I believe) the characters all sound very much 21st century to me.
What will I read next? I'm leaning toward The Count of Monte Cristo by Dumas, it's been on my shelf for awhile and I've been contemplating it and then in Angel's Game the author made a reference to it and so it will probably be next.

My split personalities have split personalities.

There are lots of things I do not believe in like- Superman and Robin Hood are still alive in Hollywood, that gasolines in short supply, the rising cost of getting by, but I believe in love- , I also don't believe in astrology. It's ridiculous on a grand scale considering the light from the stars we see in the sky have been traveling toward earth for millions of years but scoff as I may you'd be hard pressed to find a more true Gemini. To say I have a dual personality would be putting it mildly. As Kattie Perry put it, I'm hot and I'm cold, I'm yes and I'm no... I pms like a bitch and she should know. I'm country, folk, pop and rock and most everything in between. I'm a cultural luve a, and a beer swilling bubba. I'm blue collar meat and potatoes with a love of bohemia. I'm a bleeding heart liberal with a conservative slant. I'm alternatively a health nut and a glutton, which leaves me soft in the middle. I love knowledge for knowledge's sake but believe the only good brains cells are the ones you kill. I believe Socrates was sadly mistaken when he said the unexamined life isn't worth living, to examine life and death and the meaning there of is to rob yourself of happiness. So think of ball games (go Panthers!) and movies and t.v too, think of women and beer and contemplate a new tatto, or think of books and stories and theater like I do. Fill your mind with deep meditative yet empty thoughts, or become a specialist in some field of astrophysics or history. Think up ideas or if you must think on ideologies, but please keep your dogma to yourself. But don't give life itself to much attention. Mostly in life I have, like electricity, followed the path of least resistance and like water always found my on level. I go from happy to miserable and back again at mach speed. I can be such a joy to live with. It has been suggested on a few occasions that I seek medicinal help, but I hold off and hope for the best. To be honest, and let's face it that seems to have become my m.o. on this blog, I'm scared to take happy pills because I want to be able to feel, to empathize, I may not like the lows but I do adore the highs. I think I'd rather live a sine wave than to live a flat line, because a flat line sounds like dying - and dying to me don't sound like that much fun... I fight authority, authority always winning- of course, I'm also the authority too. So when my wife says, "I love you, I just wish you were better," don't judge her, I know what she means.

Just when you thought things couldn't get worse

Alright so there's this guy and he inhales a pea and it buries itself in his lung and then sprouts. So like there's not enough to worry about in this world already, now the vegetables are fighting back. My question is if the pea was cooked how did it sprout? I thought cooking killed the enzymes. Maybe it was an assassin pea in a boil proof pod sent to take out the vegetable eaters of the world. Or an alien pea that would slowly turn the people of the world into pod people. This really sucks for parents. I mean it was already hard to get the kids to eat vegetables but now they're liable to be scared to death that if they eat a pea then late one night their chest will itch and when they scratch... there will be a curly little green stalk poking out! Oh the humanity. I can hear it now- 'Mom! Help I think I swallowed a pea wrong call 911', 'Don't worry son, just drink a little Round-Up that ought to do the trick'. A pea? I've eaten bean sprouts before. What are they doing to my body? Am I slowly turning into a vegetable? There are some serious moral issues that need to be addressed before this goes further. If a person turns into a vegetable is it okay to eat them? Would they be meat or vegetable or some combination there of? Could a vegan eat a vegetable person? Would they be better steamed, fried or sauteed in a nice cream sauce? I don't believe the world is ready for this. But all bullshitting aside, well mostly anyway, if this happened to this guy isn't safe to say that it's happening to others? Look around you today as your out, look at the people beside you in line at the dmv, in the car behind you at the red light, the cashier at the adult book store and think that any one of them may be incubating a plant... in their lungs.

The reports of my demise have been greatly exaggerated.

I don't watch the news, well I very rarely watch the news. I just don't like it. It's very depressing, you never hear good things on the news it's always murder, decay, corruption, society atrophying into a state of hedonistic barbarism. Those that are obsessed with the news I think would be the same ones that thrilled at the gladiator matches in the Coliseum, kind of a thirst for the blood and misery of others but in a way that doesn't leave them wringing their hands yelling at a damned spot. Or they could just want to be well informed citizens. What do I know? Nothing, because as previously stated, I very rarely watch the news. So where do I get the news? One of four places- 1. My wife tells me, 2. I hear it on the radio before I turn the station to find some music, 3. One of those little blurbs on the Road Runner home page catches my eye before I can click on the facebook link, or (and this is a new one)4. I can go to work and have everyone ask if I'm okay, they heard I had a seizure and got robbed at Wal-Mart and then come home bewildered and look up 'the news' on the Star website. So I look up the article and while I feel terrible for the guy I'm very glad it wasn't me and I can see how the mix up may have occurred. My first name is Jeremy, this guys name, and because thats whats on my check a lot of folks at work know that it is, his last name was Sperling with an e and mine of course is with a u but I don't know how to spell everyone's name I work with and so I don't expect them to know mine. So what happened is one guy heard or saw what he thought was my name (if he had read the article I don't think he would have thought it was me) and went to work and started asking people if they heard what had happened to me. lol. Now the plot thickens. It just so happens that Wednesday the day this happened I called into work so that we could go and trade Raineys van. So you got a guy thinking I've had a seizure and had my money stolen and then you have me not coming to work and by the time I got there they had started a prayer chain and were thinking of taking up a collection to help me buy the kids school clothes. OMG! It's nice to know people care about you though. I thanked them and then told them I did have to take on a car payment which I've not had in quite awhile so if they wanted to go ahead and take up a collection for me, I'd be okay with that.